A Guide to Christmas: Part 3- Christmas Lights

           
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Here's my guide to those pesky Christmas lights we all *ahem* look forward to putting up each year.

1. This is not a competition with your neighbors. You don't have to go big like they might, complete with Santa on the roof and whatnot. If you are so compelled, then by all means go for it! But that's not absolutely necessary. You can just get a few lights and wrap them through your tree in the front yard. Don't push yourself beyond what you can do.

2. Don't ever expect the lights to do what you want or stay how you want. It just won't happen. So don't try to do major, complicated, and extravagant things with your lights like say, make your entire yard light up with crisscrossed Christmas lights and then light up your garage. It just won't work like that. By the way, your neighbors most likely spent a lot of money to pay a guy to make theirs look like that.

3. Wal-Mart carries little spiral Christmas trees that come with lights already on it. All you have to do is figure out where you want them, possibly use an extension cord, and make sure all the lights work. It's simple. They also have wire angels, but you have to wrap lights around them... with white tape... and it's a long process... Ask my mom.

4. If some of your lights are burned out, just buy new ones! They're not expensive. But if you forget to buy some every time you are anywhere that carries them, have no fear. You can usually find a way to cheat. Like this year, some lights on my grandmother's spiral tree burned out at the bottom. We couldn't figure out what to do, so we were about to put it away when lo and behold! Mother had an idea. She made the bottom part kinda fold, like she was gonna put it away, but instead left it like that: you couldn't see the burned out lights.

5. DON'T EVER LET THE CAT HELP. EVER!!!!!!!! Just trust me on this one.  

So there you have my 5 step guide on how to sucessfully put up Christmas lights!

NOTE: NO DADS ON LADDERS WERE HURT IN THE MAKING OF THIS POST.  

A Guide to Christmas: Part Two- Christmas Shopping

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Here's part two of my Christmas guide for you! An easy, 5 step guide to help you with your holiday shopping! (I know, I probably should have put this out sooner than 5 days 'till Christmas. But hey.)

1.  If you buy online, ALWAYS buy it with at least two weeks to spare before Christmas. Even if it says "Order in the next 2 hours and 37 minutes to get it by _____________!"  It won't happen. The present won't get there in time. Also, I advise against buying things from out of your country. 

2. Don't do last minute shopping on Christmas Eve. It's a BAADDD idea. Everything will be sold out and you probably won't find anything. But if you do find something, it will probably be on sale for something REALLY cheap, like 95% off. Sound like a good deal? It's probably more like "Oh, this one got broken. Let's patch it up with bubble gum and then put it on the shelf for 95% off". And, when will you find time to wrap it? You'll also be very tired when it comes around to Christmas.

 3. If, however, you ignore my above stated advise, always expect the person in front of you in line to be really chatty and want to talk to the person checking them out for 20 minutes. Or they'll be on the phone, talking and laughing LOUDLY. Or your checkout person will be chatty and want to talk for hours.
 
4. Make sure you keep in touch with everyone else buying presents for immediate family so you don't end up with double presents. If you end up with double presents anyway, pretend to be absolutely thrilled. that sometimes works. If not, just smile and say how cute they are or something like that. Whatever you do, BE NICE about it.

5. When you run out of room under your tree, it's a good indication that more presents are not ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.  

Hope you have a good Christmas! Stay tuned for parts 3 and 4 of my Christmas guide. Thanks for reading!

NOTE: No elves were harmed in the making of this post.  

 

A Guide to Christmas: Part One - Christmas Carols

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Here is my guide to the Christmas songs you hear in stores, on the radio, and some you may have on CD.

 1. If you don't know the words to a Christmas song that everyone else in the car/ house/ wherever you may be is singing, have no fear. You can just hum, or wait for less than a minute. They will probably start laughing and stop singing because they don't know the words either. If they can't make it through one verse of 'Joy to the World', that should be saying something.

2. If you feel the need to hit the person that wrote the song you happen to be listening to, try to just tune it out. That sometimes works. Otherwise, I fear you will have to just live with the terrible music. Sorry.

3. Expect the person singing to not be the best singer in the world. Always expect them to not be very good. There are some very good singers out there that are not afraid to sing Christmas music, so if you hear one that is really good, you can be happily surprised. I am not telling you to make fun of the people singing or anything like that, I am just saying that a lot of Christmas music singers aren't great.

4. If you can vaguely play any instrument under the sun, and you either tell people you can play or are forced to play in front of them, they will think you can play EVERY Christmas song under the Milky Way. And then they will make you play for them. And they will choose the weirdest song you can think of, like Jingle Bell Rock *twitch twitch*. 

5. Beware that there are several categories of Christmas music: Songs that actually celebrate Christ's birth or tell about that glorious time, songs that celebrate Santa, presents, and candy, and instrumental music that can be either. If you like the tune of some of the songs that celebrate Santa, presents, and candy, but don't like the words, here's an idea for you: Get an instrumental version and make up your own words to it.

Please remember that in this post, I am not saying anything bad about Christmas songs, the singers, or the people who wrote the songs. I am just stating that some Christmas songs aren't great, I've heard some really, really bad singers that are singing Christmas music, and I have no idea where some people get their ideas for their Christmas music, because they make it twisted and slightly morbid.

NOTE: NO REINDEER WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS POST.